Saturday, 7 March 2009

“The heat death of the universe”, by Erik Max FrancisI dropped a porcelain plate on the hardwood floor
I felt silly as I watched it fall
Not quick enough to snatch the plate
But quick enough to watch it fall
And so down it went . . . and crashed on the floor
Shattering into a thousand lost fragments
A silly thing to do
Disorder wins again

There's a masked figure lurking in the shadows
Neither male nor female
Neither human nor inhuman
Who watches over everything we do
Keeps tabs over the whole game
Tallies each little broken plate
And every little flow of heat
Who grins an evil grin . . . and grows stronger

The decision was made; no way to back down
She regretted it, of course
But we all have to live with our mistakes
There's no going back to a state of higher order
You can't climb that wall
The clock ticks, the chances run slim
And every mistake runs the meter a little higher
Eventually there's no room left to move

Sooner or later, we'll have to band together
All creatures from all walks of life
From all corners of the globe and from all globes
To fight a final battle
Against the greatest enemy of all
And its name is
Entropy

Entropy
The heat death of the universe is probably untrue. It is now theorised that, even though entropy does increase, it won’t reach a maximum after all, because maximum possible entropy increases more. Whatever that means. Phew, that’s a relief! It will still be pretty chaotic down the tracks. But nothing like the poem implies.

Order
Life equates to organisation and order. To go with the entropy flow, that's death. Does that mean, in order to facilitate life, we need to simplify things? And to limit what we process by filtering out most of the external world? Interesting thoughts. I read and write and run and plan and think and work and learn so as to stay alive. Perhaps the scientists do too. Once we know it all, we die.

Turn it up, Captain
With the new U2 album being so brilliant, I am re-hearing their older ones. Great music and more deep thoughts. "All of this... all of this can be yours. Just give me what I want and no one gets hurt".

So to run the marathon or not?
I keep changing my mind, one way then the other. Keeps the universe guessing, But here just for you Katy "I hate toast" is my suggestion for your signage for 2009.

I cannot provide the pictured pretty pair but I am sure you will think of some suitable alternative. Could there be a record field if word gets out?

Looks like a plan. Sorry entropy, it's not your turn yet.

“A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.” - G.K. Chesterton